Question Recommended specs for around 40 computers for educational purposes ?

[Dietlindchen]

Hello everyone, I'm new here and I hope You had some advice for me hoping my english will be sufficient:
I need new computers for our media rooms for adult education. there is a lot of teaching Photoshop and InDesign and even Shortcut or Premiere (Adobe). The current pc doesn't work well with the new developments and AI. We also teach Excel but that works just fine with the old pc. So here are my questions:

What components do You recommend for buying new PC (more or less 40 PCs in total) and what will it cost?
- CPU
- motherboard (with WiFi, Bluetooth, USB front)
- graphics card
- what kind of RAM (DDR 4, DDR 5?), 32 GB?
- only one harddisk, 1 TB would be enough
- Monitor (image editing, RAW, do you think I need the same quality for all monitors or would it suffice to have some for Photoshop and others for InDesign or Premiere?)

Price Range per PC: €1500-2000 .

It should work for at least 5 years but not high end. A lot of shifting users. We are public, education, no gaming. So it should work good but we also haven't that much money.

Thank's a lot for Your sugggestions!


Dietlindchen

 

[js2]

Depending on your network and setup you could go for a GPU server. Or even a Cloud Service.

If you are a registered charity/education you will get steep discounts, usually.

 

[NedSmelly]

(more or less 40 pc)

Speak with different education & enterprise volume suppliers as you’ll not only need to discuss specs, but also support agreements. What’s ideal for a freelancer and forum enthusiast is not always ideal for a lab environment. Start dialogue with usual suspects - Dell, HP, Apple, etc.

 

[Dietlindchen]

Thank's for Your ideas. Thing is I'll need to do a call of bids and I was interested not only in commercial opinions.
Cloud Services are not suitable. We have a freelance IT Admin who administer all educational technical devises but is not fit enough in graphic design needs to give me adequate tips. He does the support, host the servers, do IT security etc. The pc are also in use for Excel, Programming, IT for beginners so it shouldn't be Apple but an use for everyone and everything device. Problem is that the usual equipment ment for us not sufficient for image creation with AI etc. So I have to amp up our technic parc...
I was interested if You could give me tips about the specs for the graphic card (is GeForce RTZ 3070 or 3080 or ? acquired? Would AMD Radeon e.g. RX 6700 XT would also do the job)
If You thing Intel i7 (or i5) or AMD Ryzen 7 ist better or if all work?
If 32GB would be enough? And if You would recommend DDR 4 or DDR 5.
Do I need a Monitor like Dell UltraSharp or BenQ PD2700U only for Photoshop or also for InDesign.
I have to list what we need, than firms can apply. We are non-profit. It shouldn't be more expansive than necessary but it should do the job properly for at least 4-5 years.
Thx

 

[USAFRet]

Another question: Do you need actual Photoshop? The whole suite?

Are you teaching how to use PS, or are you teaching how to edit images and video?

The PS suite can be very expensive. By going with some less expensive alternative, you can free up a LOT of money for hardware (or other things).

 

[Corwin65]

Consistent user experience and hardware makes managing everything easier. Get the same monitors and hardware. This lets you create one image to deploy.

Reach out to Dell, this is what they do. This will give you a baseline of what they can offer. Bring that back and we could probably help whittle it down a bit.

I've had to do the same at a Community College here in NY.

I'd also make sure your software licensing is correct.

 

[kanewolf]

Hello everyone, I'm new here and I hope You had some advice for me hoping my english will be sufficient:
I need new computers for our media rooms for adult education. there is a lot of teaching Photoshop and InDesign and even Shortcut or Premiere (Adobe). The current pc doesn't work well with the new developments and AI. We also teach Excel but that works just fine with the old pc. So here are my questions:

What components do You recommend for buying new PC (more or less 40 PCs in total) and what will it cost?
- CPU
- motherboard (with WiFi, Bluetooth, USB front)
- graphics card
- what kind of RAM (DDR 4, DDR 5?), 32 GB?
- only one harddisk, 1 TB would be enough
- Monitor (image editing, RAW, do you think I need the same quality for all monitors or would it suffice to have some for Photoshop and others for InDesign or Premiere?)

Price Range per PC: €1500-2000 .

It should work for at least 5 years but not high end. A lot of shifting users. We are public, education, no gaming. So it should work good but we also haven't that much money.

Thank's a lot for Your sugggestions!


Dietlindchen

One thing you didn't mention, but I will add to your list of items to consider is monitor calibration hardware. Photo editing requires consistent color. Monitors REQUIRE calibration for quality photo editing. Monitor calibration should be part of the classroom experience.
Dell (and maybe others) sell monitors that are "factory calibrated". That is a good place to start. The ability to save and reload the factory calibration or the ability to lock out users from messing with the brightness/contrast would be beneficial. Wasting setup time because some user thought it would be "fun" to turn the monitor 90 degrees and make it black and white.
I agree that you need one hardware baseline, because you need to be able to load a "golden" disk image because your students might mess up ANYTHING.
The software you are using does benefit from a lot of RAM. 32GB is probably appropriate.
You should also consider what on-site spares you should buy. Power supplies, RAM, storage are the most common failures. Motherboards and CPUs are infrequent failures.

 

[Dietlindchen]

Thanks a lot for Your support and the smart recommendations! That was a big help.

"Another question: Do you need actual Photoshop? The whole suite?..."
To answer the question: We do both. We have seminars with a focus on editing with variable tools and those with focus on learning a specific software program of the Adobe or Affinity Suite or Canva.

If I have further questions e.g. after getting offers I'm happy to ask for Your expertise again.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks a lot for Your support and the smart recommendations! That was a big help.

"Another question: Do you need actual Photoshop? The whole suite?..."
To answer the question: We do both. We have seminars with a focus on editing with variable tools and those with focus on learning a specific software program of the Adobe or Affinity Suite or Canva.

If I have further questions e.g. after getting offers I'm happy to ask for Your expertise again.

I only asked about "actual Photoshop" because people equate image editing to Photoshop and only Photoshop.

When in reality, there are numerous suites that will do 99% of what PS does, for 1/10 the cost.

As said...are you teaching Photoshop, or "image editing"?
They are not the same.

 

[NedSmelly]

I was interested if You could give me tips about the specs for the graphic card (is GeForce RTZ 3070 or 3080 or ? acquired? Would AMD Radeon e.g. RX 6700 XT would also do the job)

There are reports that Adobe Neural AI filters work best with Nvidia RTX4xxx series due to their tensor cores. 8GB VRAM minimum for 4K video editing in Premiere, preferably 16GB or more.

If You thing Intel i7 (or i5) or AMD Ryzen 7 ist better or if all work?

8-core would be optimal for Adobe CC suite. 10+ cores doesn’t speed things up much more. For lab environment you don’t need Intel K series or AMD X3D series.

If 32GB would be enough? And if You would recommend DDR 4 or DDR 5.

Latest gen all use DDR5, so I’d go for that. 32GB RAM minimum - I’d go 64 if budget allows.

Do I need a Monitor like Dell UltraSharp or BenQ PD2700U only for Photoshop or also for InDesign.

Print and pre-press is best done with AdobeRGB gamut monitor. DCI-P3 gamut for video. You want a screen with hardware LUT calibration such as Benq SW series or an Eizo, along with a Calibrite puck. LED is fine, Latest Benq SW uses mini-LED I think. There are newer OLED pro screens coming out (I think Asus ProArt) but it’s bleeding edge stuff for pro market. PD2700 is only from a design series with sRGB/Rec709. iMHO avoid Datacolor Spyder, it’s an old sensor that doesn’t work with OLED.

I have to list what we need, than firms can apply. We are non-profit. It shouldn't be more expansive than necessary but it should do the job properly for at least 4-5 years.
Thx